UN Procurement Panel Recommends End To Siemens Suspension

A United Nations procurement review committee has recommended that Siemens AG be reinstated as a vendor, following a nearly two-year suspension over the engineering giant’s guilty plea in a massive foreign bribery probe, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Michaela Rehle/Reuters

Siemens has been unable to bid on U.N. contracts since March 2009, when it received notice of suspension from the Vendor Review Committee of the U.N. Secretariat Procurement Division.

The suspension stemmed from a global resolution in 2008 in which Siemens agreed to pay $1.6 billion to U.S. and German authorities to settle charges that it engaged in widespread bribery overseas, including charges that it inflated U.N. contracts in the corruption-plagued Oil-for-Food Program. The company agreed to pay a record-breaking $450 million in criminal penalties in the U.S. alone.

The U.N. Vendor Review Committee informed Siemens on Jan. 14 that it had recommended reinstatement to the organization’s top procurement official, the company said in a Jan. 25 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Siemens had filed a request to lift the suspension more than a year ago. (For a list of U.N. vendors, current as of Jan. 14, click here.)

Siemens was also barred from bidding for World Bank contracts for two years. As part of the company’s 2009 settlement with the bank, Siemens agreed to distribute $100 million to anti-corruption programs over the next 15 years.

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